She was born in a massive elvish city on a continent to the north of Darkness Incarnate. The city was, for the most part, focused on the production and training of soldiers. Though the city itself rarely saw itself attacked, so their purpose was not one of a fortress, but rather a very large barracks, which sent its soldiers to many other elven kingdoms, and were always welcome reinforcements. The large scale of the city demanded it be self-sustaining, but it was clear to any visitor that the focus was military power.

She grew up in a family, second to the eldest child, daughter to a father who had good standings in the army, and was generally well liked by his peers. Both he, and his wife, expected that his children would follow in his footsteps and feed the purpose of the city by learning to fight, and eventually join the army. Her older brother first picked up the bow, in which he excelled, and quickly mastered at a very young age. Swordplay and magic too seemed as simple as breathing to him, though he chose not to practice magic beyond the basic conjurations that a child coming into the talent was expected to practice, though this request came from Ellia, whom he had accidentally burned with mana when they were playing around, the spell being formed out of anger. Still, he was especially skilled and bright for one so young, and people quickly took notice of him, showering him with praises. He was a genius, capable of beating respected veterinarians up close with swords, or at a distance with bows. He had amazing insight for field tactics too, and was placed upon a pedestal. He would eventually become the youngest elf the city sent into battle.

Ellia, on the other hand, did poorly in archery classes, and outright failed swordplay and magic courses. People had expected her to be at least somewhat compatible to her brother, but it did not take a decade for them to realise who got all the talent between the siblings. Overshadowed by her successful brother, distraught that she would not even be allowed into the rank and file of the army, Ellia's parents sent her to a boarding school in hopes that she would make a suitable scholar. Though not as horrid at learning books as she was weapon use, she did not accomplish enough to break out of mediocrity. Still, she found that she liked geography and related subjects, and after learning enough to stay alive in a desert, and travelled to one.

A sudden sandstorm devastated her while she was leaving the sands, hitting her when supplies were short and fatigue had already began to sink in. Afterwards, she collapsed on the crest of a dune, and fell. When she had awoke, she found herself in a cool room beneath the sands, with a pack of maroon clay. The roof caved in, spilling sand everywhere, but the elf managed to escape back into the desert before she drowned. This clay helped her escape the desert by leaving directional arrows along the sand, pointing to the shortest way out.

She came to Darkness Incarnate seeking strength and power, something to go home and show her parents, to prove that she wasn't worthless and forgettable, to finally break out of her brother's shadow. The maroon clay was like a gift; she was able to command it with her will, learning a few ways to implement it into a fight. From home she heard tales of wanderers in Darkness Incarnate, beings that ranged in power from someone like herself to the type that made divinity nervous. She came for these wanderers, thinking the stresses of a difficult fight would make her grow faster than just playing around with her new toy. Time was of the essence, if she took her time, her brother may grow faster than her, and diminish whatever changes she could make.

Boreas was the first person she met, and ran a quick test to make sure she wouldn't get killed too quickly, though the exercise seemed cut short by the appearance of Sutera, which Ellia slunk away from after a few moments. Weeks later, she was alerted to a fire in the forest, an event that led her to Cerit. He had caused a wooden town to start burning while on a killing spree, and though Ellia wasn't overly concerned for the loss of life, did want him to help put out the fire before the trees were harmed. A fight broke out, and though that was the reason Ellia came to the land, found herself overpowered and losing. At the end, the man found himself on a balcony while the house they were in burned fiercely, and in an attempt to kill the man, Ellia pushed him off the balcony, letting him fall to the ground. She fired at him with her crossbow, but missed.

Before he fell, he managed to place his hand on her back, but for some reason, chose not to grab her. A cool, relaxing but foreign voice came from him, and a feeling of icy lines shot through her, twisting at 90 degree angles, an event that was likely the most important part of her life, though she did not know this till much later. She survived the fight, and the villagers cared for her wounds. She later came down with a mysterious illness that the local people could not cure, and was sent to a larger hospital in a different city. While coughing up a black tar like substance and other painful symptoms, she was put through the many treatments that they tried. The hospital's great reputation of every curable patient gets cured is less amazing when it's only true because the only ways to leave are healthy or dead. But she wanted to leave. After their magics failed, when their natural cures proved ineffective, when their religious figures were stumped, they began resorting to bizarre rituals. Many were invasive, some downright perverse. Far too invasive and perverse for what they accomplished, namely, nothing at all. And they wouldn't hear of her want to leave. Many were determined to fix her ailment, some were convinced that her disease was talking when she said she wanted to leave.

Suddenly, things went back to normal. Of course her 'caretakers' claimed responsibility, but she was just happy to get away from them all, and went back into the forest. She was not aware that it was the same forest she was just in, as she was entering from the side opposite to where she came from before. She didn't notice it was the same area until she was close to the burned town she was in when she fought Cerit. It was at that time she met Nuncia. After a brief encounter with the shapeshifter, the two travelled to the town to get the Sylvaan medical attention. Ellia silently chose to take her to the wood town instead of the hospital she came from. She was not sure the people of the town would stick around, but she hated the doctors of the larger hospital enough that the risk of finding no one or getting help exceeded the desire to ever return to the larger city; even if help there was guaranteed.

They got the attention that they needed, but Ellia saw herself framed for murders she did not do. It was, instead, a corrupt child, taking advantage of his coin and the greed of his peers. Nuncia had helped her escape from the prison, but the building was burned down in the process, leaving the other 'criminal' to escape. Into the forest the elves fled, becoming friends from their misadventure, when the other escapee caught up to them and used an modified Mind Twist to down them. In her vulnerable state, Ellia was grabbed and stabbed in the neck, dying shortly after. Nuncia managed to kill David the psionist, and buried her friend, finding a note that explained why Ellia was framed and killed, as well as the story behind David, and the truth of the whole situation.

But that was not to be the end. The mark on her shoulder that Cerit had left glowed a terrific purple, and the healing began. It seemed like ages crept by, Ellia was free to think, free to feel, but unable to move. Her body was going through healing in what felt to be a very normal method, the cells repairing themselves so they could function again, the sections of her brain that suffered from the lack of blood, her heart that had stopped. Any damage that she had underwent all the uncomfortable healing stages, all the while the elf could do little but feel the pain of the events, and the new pain from being buried under rocks. She was frozen in place until the last of her scars vanished, even the childhood scar her brother had left had been erased. All but the hole in her neck that came about from a kris.

It took her another long period to crawl out from under the stones Nuncia had placed above her. It felt hopeless at first, but being under rock for longer than a week and coming back to life seemed to signify she was to lay down there until she got out; something that would be terribly boring after a while. The first thing she saw when she got out from her grave was the crumpled paper explaining why she died. Hatred exploded within; greed and ambition was what put her through her pain, and she vowed she would end it. Not just greed and ambition, but all suffering that came from intelligent species.

In that moment of determination, her vision faded to black, and a simple note drifted into her conciousness. Its layout was very formal, and it looked exactly like a legal document. It outlined the terms of her existence. Zu, it said, the demon that powered Cerit, had taken a part of her soul in their battle, and now had great influence over its fate. When she died, he knew why, and was willing to make a deal. She would be able to live, but in return, she would need to kill and collect souls for the demon. If she failed to meet the quota, she would cease living. Each cycle of the moon she would be responsible for a given number of souls.

She hesitated. She would need to kill every month just to stay alive. She would be undead, living off a demon's will. She would take other people's lives so that she could follow her own goals, and in some twisted fate, become very much like the ones she despised so much. She was ready to reject the offer, but a sudden realisation changed her mind.

She signed her name. There was indeed only one way to prevent people from hurting one another, and that was annihilation. Even should someone make everyone peaceful, there would be no way to control future generations. Her goals, and Zu's goals, had the same means. Though Ellia found her maroon clay no longer taking her instruction, her connection to the earth became non-reliant on the mineral mix. A wizard was born.

I had never heard a word from the one who held the hand of my soul aside from when he spoke through Cerit shortly before I knocked him off a balcony, but sometimes, when alone, occasionally , I can hear what I assume to be his presence. There are no words, nor any sound that one would expect some sort of mortal being to produce without rousing much suspicion, and it's closer to feeling a sound than it is to hearing it. No one I questioned noticed anything out of the ordinary when I questioned them, and it does feel rather ominous. It worried me, feeling it, the noise transferring a feeling of unease no matter how positive I stayed about the idea. And it is always muffled, like no matter where I am, I'm in a room and it's in the next room over, sharing a wall with me. It is chaotic in feel, but quiet and suppressed enough to almost sound controlled and nearly static. I never really gathered much from the sensation except perverse unease until today, and without any more written pieces of communication since the day I had died, any messages the feelings were meant to share remained only feelings to be twisted about in my downtime.

But today, it was like someone had explained a great deal to me without a word or a letter, like I had already known something detailed and simply forgot. Perhaps it was due to the circumstances of the agreement, I cannot say. But things make more sense now.

The contract was not a permanent arrangement, and from this point onwards, I am no longer contractually obliged to gather a certain number of souls in order to keep walking in the lands of the living. I had always been confused as to how a demon who seemed bent towards causing harm and helping his vessels to become better at causing harm would have the ability and know-how of resurrection and sustaining life. I was also curious as to why he'd bother with something so formal as a written agreement, but, I didn't feel as if I could afford to question those that kept me alive about perceived inconsistencies. Now it makes sense; Zu had turned to the aid of another being in keeping me alive, and what I was doing was collecting payment for the transaction. The contract was meant for me only in the sense that I was accepting responsibility for one side of the trade. I immediately questioned the purpose for the lunar quota, and just as immediately, I understood it was not a part of the proper agreement, but that it was imposed by my guardian simply to kick-start my will to kill, and to get comfortable with it.

So I'm free. Why would I continue do kill in person? Organization and large-scale manoeuvring would be a much better process to bring the sentient races to annihilation, and time was on my side. I could gain wealth and throw my weight around at the top end, the only way I could possibly end fast producing races. There'd be no way I would be able to kill faster in person than the birthrate of all people everywhere. Wars were better than dragging individuals off into the night at a pace that needed to be slow enough to not arouse too much suspicion. I could keep my hands clean now, right? Wouldn't it be better than to keep turning to demonic contracts every time I find myself on the mean end of a weapon?

Then I felt stupid. Just because the debt was paid doesn't change the fact that I am no longer a properly living individual. I mimic it well enough to function as an elf, even in crowds, but I still retained the inability to eat, or the need to sleep. I still felt somewhat colder than someone healthy should, and still look sick. I am still dead, and Zu still is not an expert on preserving life. However dead I may be, I still face the natural issue of deterioration, and without being able to rely on normal ways to combat entropy or even wounds, I need an alternate source of fuel. And he too realised it'd be best to avoid depending on others should I fall, and let my anchor into this realm lay within my rocky grave I awoke in. He would make a mirror of myself in the ground as I brought in similar tissues to those that I required to function, so that I could have a fall-back me in the event of another death, and so that he would have a pool of easy to work with bandages for when I get hurt or start falling to disrepair. This is why I would throw up regular food and drink. It isn't helpful, and thus, gets rejected.

I no longer need to play at being a reaper of souls. Today, I became a devourer of the sentient.